The Misunderstood Stagecoach by Eden Monroe

 

 Eden Monroe Author page

          The time is the 1870’s in the province of New Brunswick in beautiful Eastern Canada - the setting for the romantic suspense novel, Bound For Somewhere, Book One of The Kavenaghs series. It was also the era of stagecoach travel, one of the few methods of public transportation during the 1800’s.

But while travelling by stagecoach may seem like a fairy-tale chapter from the past, in reality there was nothing glamourous about it at all. It was simply a way to get from Point A to Point B. For one thing, passengers could count on getting coated with plenty of road dust during the summer and fall. Such was the fate for passengers Garrett Kavenagh and Eliza Williams as they made their way along the Westmorland Great Road from the shire town of Dorchester, a distance of a little less than thirty miles up to the bustling town of Moncton.

“She leaned back and looked out the side window. He briefly considered pulling down the leather curtain to spare them the billowing dust outside, but that would be at the expense of the scenery, such as it was. The roadsides were heavily forested so there wasn’t much to see, but at least there was daylight. The temperature had risen to an uncomfortable level inside the coach, so any attempt to block fresh air or hopefully a breeze would be most unwise.”

Another unpleasant circumstance that stagecoach travellers had to contend with were often deplorable road conditions (besides the dust). The roads in early New Brunswick were usually rudimentary at best (the bridges were even worse), although the main thoroughfares called the great roads were in better shape than many secondary roadways. Memories of such experiences are set out in W. Eugene Goodrich’s book The Stagecoach Era in Dorchester:

“… anyone who rode the sixteen to eighteen hours between Saint John and Dorchester in a … stagecoach must have been pretty sick of it by the end of the journey, even if it was in a Concord. In bad weather, and in general during the last years of the stagecoach era when the road had had time to deteriorate, it took considerably longer than that. An English lady touring North America left a harrowing account of a trip from Moncton to Saint John that took twenty hours—with stops only for meals and a change of horses. After an unusually soggy summer, the roads were so muddy that the passengers had to get out and walk up the hills because the horses balked at dragging the heavily laden coach through the mire. They also had to get out and walk across several bridges that were in such bad shape they were in danger of collapsing under additional load. It didn’t calm their nerves any when they were told, after crossing one particularly rickety specimen, that only a few weeks before, a coach and six horses had broken through its rotting planks—whether with injuries or fatalities was left unsaid.”

Also, in addition to the misfortune of being divested of your valuables by the occasional highwayman, there were plenty of accidents … and fatalities, including the horses. Long difficult journeys made for exhausted and all too frequently injured animals. Since horses were the lifeblood of the operation, their wellbeing was of utmost importance. Either a much-deserved rest or fresh replacements awaited at relay stations situated at about twenty mile intervals along the various routes throughout the province. (Some stagecoaches ran through the night).

Another popular misconception about these early stagecoach days has to do with the speed at which they travelled – which of course depended on the pace the horses were able to maintain. This particular misunderstanding exists because of television and the movies where stagecoach horses can be seen running for miles on end at top speed without seeming to tire. In reality. a horse can only run in full flight (a gallop) for about a mile and a half (unless gait varies with cantering and trotting) before becoming fatigued. Actual stagecoach horses usually travelled at a full trot (on good roads), averaging about six miles (9.65 kilometres) per hour, and considering the poor road conditions they were forced to navigate in some instances, they certainly earned their rest.

Also called post houses where the stagecoach and horses were serviced and passengers refreshed, these facilities were all too often found to be wanting. For the most part they were taverns, and intoxicating spirits typically flowed freely. Although there were indeed reputable establishments in use for this purpose, most accommodations were spartan at best. Such was the case at Todd’s Place, a stop along the line in Queens County, New Brunswick according to backyardhistory.ca:

“In her book ‘A Time There Was,’ Marion Gilcrest Reicker describes what was likely a nicer than average tavern called Todd’s Place, in Mill Cove on Lake Washademoak. Curiously, while the stable was by the road, the tavern itself was on the opposite side of the lake from the road, meaning guests had to be paddled across. Inside Todd’s Place, travelers would all eat together in a big common room, where they all sat at a single large table on long benches. Wet clothes were hung on a line over the large fireplace to dry. At night the travelers would all sleep in one big bunk room at the back of the tavern. Often there were more travelers than beds, and so strangers would sleep together in the same bed until there was physically no space left. Those not lucky enough to fit into the beds would sleep wrapped in blankets on the benches in the common room.”

Of course not many women travelled alone during those times, but those who did brave such an undertaking had better be able to hold their own in what was a male-dominated transportation industry. Although physically demanding in any number of ways, it might have been the question of proper accommodations during overnight stops that a woman on her own would have found most challenging.

The coaches themselves left much to be desired in terms of comfort, compared to the amenities we’ve become accustomed to today. Nevertheless efforts were made in that regard during those early times, including leather strap suspension designed to act as springs. These straps also helped take stress off the horses or (or in some cases mules). And if passengers suffered from motion sickness, and many did just like today, the relentless “pitching, swaying and tossing” stagecoach would be a hard way to go. Coaches came in various models, and depending on its size were pulled by anywhere from two to six horses. There was usually room for nine (very cramped) passengers inside the larger coaches, and they often had to hold their luggage on their lap. If business was brisk, there was room for another eight or nine passengers on the roof of the stagecoach.

Stagecoaches in New Brunswick serviced the province’s population by way of several routes throughout its 73, 440 square kilometres (28,354 square miles), mail delivery (at designated stops) being one of the key components of stage line operations. After freeze-up, “the rivers became ideal sleigh roads” to provide stage service. The advent of rail beginning in the mid to late 1800’s made for a quicker, cleaner, more comfortable means of travel although early trains, as set out in The Stagecoach Era in Dorchester “had an appalling accident rate” compared to stagecoaches.

But perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of all about stagecoach travel in general, is that of its origin. As many may mistakenly assume, stagecoaches are not a product of the old west.

“Stagecoaches are commonly imagined thundering across the plains of the Old West with bands of robbers or hostile Indians in hot pursuit, and indeed they sometimes did that. But they were equally common in eastern North America many decades before they appeared in the American West,” says W. Eugene Goodrich in his aforementioned book. “The first stagecoach lines were developed in Europe and were already a familiar sight in the time of Shakespeare.”